Turn An Image Into A Video

Why is it useful to know how to turn an image into a video? It’s NOT to turn a Facebook meme image into a video. That was a fad awhile ago back when Facebook was really pushing video. I believe they cracked down on accounts doing that so I wouldn’t recommend it.

But I WOULD recommend turning an image into a video for an important Instagram or Facebook Story post.

Why?

When you have a Story you want to share with a lot of text, and it’s important to you that your audience reads your entire message, you definitely want to increase its duration.

A photo in Instagram Story lasts 4 seconds. And with the average person reading 3-5 words per second, that means the Story will rotate out by the time a person reads 12-20 words of your Story.

So, if you make a Story like this one (made with the Scrapbook tool in the PhotoGrid app)…

…unless your audience knows to press down on the screen (don’t assume they do, especially if they’re not in the marketing biz) or is willing to keep tapping back, all that hard work will be wasted.

That’s where turning your image into a video comes in handy. If you use an app like InShot (iOS, Android), you can turn a still image into a video with a maximum duration of 10 seconds. Obviously that still won’t be enough for a wordy Story like the one above, but it’s much better than only 4 seconds.

So, here’s how to use the InShot app to turn an image into a video:

First, make sure to tap Video (not Photo) in the opening screen. Then tap Photo and select your image.

If you’re importing a vertical image, it may appear resized to square with white or blurred margins. If this happens, or you need to resize for whatever reason, go to Canvas and select the aspect ratio you want. For Stories, you want 9:16.

Now select the photo at the bottom of the screen. Tap Duration. Move the slider all the way to 10 seconds.

Tap the upload button in the top right-hand corner and save to your camera roll.

Congrats! You’ve turned your image into a video which will now hopefully get more bang for your buck when it appears in your audience’s Story feed.

Hope you found this helpful! If you’d like some serious Stories techniques for marketing your business from your phone, check out Mobile Stories Studio.

If you’d like to remember this tip later on how to us the InShot app to turn an image into a video, then pin this image to your Pinterest account.

Tabitha Carro

I'm OBSESSED with learning how to do anything and everything for my business from my iPhone. This has been essential to maximizing my snuggle time on the couch with my Yorkie-Poo and favorite human while growing my business on the go.